


this is the place where everything starts to begin (the wounds reveal a thicker skin and suddenly there is no floor)

by voxofthevoid



Series: the hero's shoulders [3]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Communication, Consensual Somnophilia, Dominance and Submission, Face Slapping, Face-Fucking, Love Confessions, M/M, Masochism, Mild Injury, Rape Fantasy, Rough Sex, Sadism, Spanking, Terribly Contrived Dramatic Timing, Undernegotiated Consensual Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:13:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24752980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxofthevoid/pseuds/voxofthevoid
Summary: They have an odd stare-off where neither party’s sure exactly what they’re being stubborn about but isn’t prepared to just give in. Shit like that keeps happening. Bucky thinks that he’s being granted a sneak peek into what domesticity with Steve Rogers will be like.It's guaranteed to drive him insane within a week, and there’s probably something very wrong with him for wanting it anyway.“Come sit with me,” Bucky says, needlessly aggressive considering the content of his words. “I have a broken leg.”“You have a sprained ankle,” Steve corrects, but he obediently makes his way to Bucky. “You do have two cracked ribs.”“I’m suffering.”“I don’t doubt that.”Steve doesn’t make Bucky get any more direct than that. His kisses are the best medicine. Doctors should bottle that shit, they’d make a killing, but then Bucky would be forced to make some very literal killings.“Kinda like you like this,” Steve says once they come up for air. “You’re very sweet.”“I threatened to throw juice at your head literally five minutes ago.”“Sweet,” Steve insists.-Borrowed peace.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: the hero's shoulders [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719319
Comments: 147
Kudos: 602





	this is the place where everything starts to begin (the wounds reveal a thicker skin and suddenly there is no floor)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [this is the place where everything starts to begin (the wounds reveal a thicker skin and suddenly there is no floor)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29532438) by [WTF Bucky Bottom 2021 (WTF_Bucky_Bottom_2021)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Bucky_Bottom_2021/pseuds/WTF%20Bucky%20Bottom%202021)



> Halfway mark! Another 3 months, and we'll kiss this verse goodbye ;)
> 
> Fic title from Siken's "The Dislocated Room."
> 
> The beauty that's bike!Steve and the other pieces are all kocuria's magic. You can find her on [tumblr](https://kocuria.tumblr.com/) 💗
> 
> And I've got a[ tumblr here](https://voxofthevoid.tumblr.com/).

* * *

* * *

Bucky has half a second to realize he’s not alone in the room before a body slams into him. He’s tired, it’s been a long fucking day playing hide-and-seek-and-maim with Ross’s goons, and he does _not_ have the time or the patience for this shit.

The first indication that everything’s not as it seems is that his opponent has no difficulty whatsoever restraining his metal arm. Sure, the arms trying to wrap around him feel like muscled meatsacks, but his left arm’s no—

Fuck, but those are very familiar muscled meatsacks.

Bucky freezes for a millisecond, and that’s all his assailant needs. He’s pinned face-first to the wall, and a knee shoves itself between his thighs, pressing firmly upwards.

“Hey, stranger,” Steve greets.

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ ,” Bucky breathes in a rush. The tension leeches out of him, only to be replaced by tension of another kind. “What’s wrong with you?”

Steve says nothing. He doesn’t let go of Bucky either, keeping him pinned with his body while his arms start roving down Bucky’s skin, groping him through layers of supple armor. It gets Bucky squirming, predictable as anything, and this is absolutely not how figured this day would end, but he’s sure not complaining.

“If Ross’s people find us like this,” he tells Steve, “they’re gonna shit kittens.”

He expects a laugh or some of that casually vicious cursing that seems to come naturally to Steve whenever Thaddeus Ross is involved. But what he gets is a hand cupping his crotch and another palming a pec. The sensations are dulled by his clothing, but the memories of Steve’s hands on his skin are all too vivid in Bucky’s mind, and there’s something about this too, an illicit thrill.

“It would make a sight,” Steve says, his voice low and darkly amused. “The feared Winter Soldier, getting fucked out of his mind. You gonna beg for it? Or just scream?”

What the f—oh. _Oh_.

Bucky’s still as stone, and Steve is too, wrapped around Bucky but not as firmly as before, like he could keep going or back off. Waiting, then, for Bucky to say the word.

“That how you want to play?” he asks.

The answer he gets is Steve’s teeth on the nape of his neck, sinking right in. Bucky hisses out a breath, a pleasurable jolt slicing through his gut. And he considers, for a moment, just going limp and letting Steve have his way. Begging for it. Steve likes it, doesn’t he, when Bucky begs?

He considers it, but when Steve’s teeth release him and is replaced by a tongue licking at the hurt, Bucky braces himself and breaks Steve’s hold in one, violent burst of movement. The room’s dark, and he can’t see Steve except as a looming shadow. But it’s enough for them to fight, knocking down tables and slamming into walls, causing enough damage that sheer guilt will make Bucky leave a hefty tip.

It's not an all-out brawl, but it’s no play-fight either. Plaster rains down on them, and a pillow gets sacrificed, and when Steve finally pins Bucky on the floor, he finds himself inhaling dust and cotton. He coughs, and Steve lets up a little, but not enough that Bucky can break free. He doesn’t ask if Bucky’s alright, but he does stroke his hair a little, petting him without breaking their fragile little illusion.

Bucky fucking loves this man.

“Let go,” Bucky says, puts a little whimper in his voice, and hides a grin at Steve’s sharp inhale.

“No,” comes the answer, Steve’s voice rough from more than just the fight. “I don’t think I will.”

Steve sets about stripping him off his weapons. It takes a while, but he finds them all, which is honestly impressive. Bucky’s pants are torn off him, all brute force and no finesse. Tac pants that can survive the shit he puts them through aren’t inexpensive, but it’s not like Bucky can’t afford to buy another pair after sacrificing these for such a noble cause.

He sucks in a breath when cool air hits his backside. The sound turns into something else entirely when Steve’s hands smooth over the exposed skin, rubbing firmly over his thighs before grabbing hold of his underwear and tearing that off too. Bucky writhes a little, acting like he’ll shove Steve over and run off, but Steve keeps him down with a warning squeeze to his nape as he works on prying scraps of fabric out from under Bucky.

His bared ass gets a slap, first one cheek and then the other, each making Bucky gasp. Even Steve’s love taps leave bruises, and Bucky’s skin has been too damn bare for the last couple of weeks,

“You like that?” Steve asks, kneading Bucky’s ass. It’s not gentle, fingers digging into sensitive flesh. “Looks like you do.”

“Fuck off,” Bucky grits out, glad Steve can’t see the sudden, violent way he flushes. He can’t help it, not when Steve starts talking like that.

“That’s not a no,” Steve says, thumb suddenly brushing Bucky’s hole.

“It’s a fucking no. Let go, you fucking pervert.”

That’s a laugh, definitely, but Steve covers it up well enough, turning it into a low growl that reverberates up Bucky’s spine. He squirms, without meaning to this time, and the blow that lands on both his cheeks brings tears to his eyes.

“Stop that,” he gasps.

He has to bite down hard on his lip to stifle a moan when Steve just keeps going as if he can’t even hear Bucky. He doesn’t spend too long spanking him, but by the time he lets up, Bucky’s entire ass is smarting and likely a rosy red. Steve’s palm runs over his handiwork after, rubbing almost gently one second, then scraping his nails over particularly livid spots.

It gets Bucky cross-eyed and panting in no time flat, barely keeping up a pretense of protest as his cock drools against the floor.

Steve doesn’t pay attention to that though. He settles his bulk over Bucky’s body, flattening him almost painfully. With anyone else, it would feel suffocating, all that heat and nowhere to escape to, but Steve’s long since made an art of bypassing Bucky’s rational and irrational brain to get right to the horny, desperate bits of him.

There are sounds of something clicking open and the slick slide of skin. Bucky knows what’s coming and struggles a little, gratified when Steve barely budges.

“Stay still,” he growls into Bucky ear, nipping at the lobe. “Come on now, don’t make me hurt that pretty face.”

Bucky makes a downright embarrassing noise as his whole body goes tight and taut with need.

Steve doesn’t get off Bucky, just shifts so he can access his hole while keeping Bucky pinned. Two fingers thrust into him, and they’re dripping wet but too damn big. It burns something fierce, Bucky’s insides convulsing around the sudden stretch. The air’s knocked out of his lungs in a pained gasp, and Steve’s response is to just screw those fingers in deeper, twisting Bucky into shuddering knots.

“Hurts,” he says, soft and a little pathetic, and he likes that he can say it, likes that Steve’s only response will be to make him hurt more.

Sure enough, a third finger slides in. There’s less lube on it than the others, and fuck, Bucky’s taken Steve with nothing but spit, he knows he can take it, but it doesn’t feel like it when his entire goddamn asshole flares up in warning. He whimpers and writhes under Steve, and none of it matters because Steve’s got Bucky where he wants him, and he’s not letting go until he’s used him well and good.

A few perfunctory thrusts, and the fingers are gone. Steve does lift himself off Bucky this time, not far, just to settle back between his legs. Bucky takes advantage of the fleeting freedom to raise himself up on his hands and knees, but Steve turns that to his advantage too, grabbing Bucky by the hips and yanking him back, right onto Steve waiting cock.

It slides between his cheeks, wet and hot, the head nudging his hole. It’s a blunt, threatening pressure, and it makes him weak at the knees. Always has. The way Steve touched him, from the strength in his hands to the prying heat of his cock, haunted him through those two years as surely as the memories of the few kisses they shared and the look Steve wore when Bucky broke his heart piece by piece.

He tries to blink away the burning in his eyes, but Steve pulls back and pushes _in_ , and there’s no holding back the tears or the scream that bursts out of his throat.

There’s no mercy in Steve tonight, just a relentless pressure that fills Bucky up in one, brutal thrust. It steals his air and half his sense, going from empty to so maddeningly full in a second. He can’t stop clenching around Steve, whining breathlessly when each minute shift drives home how full he is, how bad it burns.

Behind him, Steve’s not unaffected. Bucky can hear the harsh rhythm of his breathing, and his hands are tight around Bucky’s hips.

Steve gives him just enough time to adjust that the first thrust feels like being split open all over again. The hands Bucky fought to get under him collapse. He cushions his fall, head thudding down on folded arms. Steve adjusts himself to the new position all too easily, situating himself more comfortably between Bucky’s spread thighs. He slams into Bucky, over and over. Not a sound comes out of him, except for the roughness of his breaths and the slick sounds of his body driving into Bucky’s.

Bucky makes up for it, mouth open on an endless stream of cries and bitten-off words, each one fucked out of him with carefully controlled violence.

His ass burns, inside and out, pain threaded through with mind-numbing pleasure. It fucks Bucky up like nothing, and Steve knows it, has been taking advantage of it since they met, and it doesn’t take him long to drive Bucky to the edge, all without even a touch on his dick.

Bucky squirms with it, sheer sensation shuddering through his veins, needing just that final push to send it over. Steve doesn’t give it to him, just keeps fucking, almost machine-like in his brutal efficiency. He’s chasing his own pleasure, Bucky’s just _there_ , and that goes right to his cock too, gets him half-mad with how it feels to be just kept there and used.

It's Steve coming that sets him off. A burst of heat coats his walls, drips out his hole, and slides down his thighs. Steve keeps fucking Bucky through it, grunting softly as his thrusts turn erratic. One catches Bucky right along the prostate, almost like Steve aimed for it, and the dam breaks.

Bucky sobs into his arms as he comes, walls tightening helplessly around Steve’s cock.

After they’re both spent, Steve’s still hard.

“Oh god,” Bucky mumbles into his arms, squeezing his eyes shut like that’ll ease the intensity of feeling Steve still in him, every inch of him throbbing and ready.

Steve laughs quietly.

He starts moving again, and it’s almost leisurely this time. He pulls out slow and lazy, fucks Bucky with shallow strokes that doesn’t fill him up but keeps him wide open, rim stretched taut around the tip of Steve’s head. And then he fucks all the way in, tearing a shocked shout out of Bucky, and just stays buried balls-deep, grinding his hips like he can crawl that much deeper into Bucky.

It drives him crazy, turns him wild. And it doesn’t matter one whit because Bucky can claw at the floor and curse all he wants, but Steve’s going to do this at his own pace, fuck him the way Steve wants.

“You can always beg,” Steve says like he can read Bucky’s mind. “Might make this easier on you. I’m nice like that, sweetheart.”

“F-fuck you,” Bucky manages to say, each syllable dragged screaming out of his dry throat.

“Have it your way.”

Steve rams in savagely, shoving Bucky’s body forward an inch. He repeats the motion, again and again, each thrust making Bucky cry out and try in vain to escape. There’s nowhere to go and no way to squirm free of the hands grasping his body tight, and he’s just pulled back onto Steve’s cock, forced to take it deep over and over until he’s moving back into it on his own, chasing the fleeting pressure on his prostate and the violent pleasure of being filled up so thoroughly. Steve’s come keeps leaking out of him with every thrust, his own cock pushing it out of Bucky. He likes the trickle of it down his thighs, likes imagining Steve’s cock covered in his own release.

Steve likes it too, he thinks, listening to the ragged breathing from behind him. He keeps spreading Bucky’s cheeks as if to watch his cock disappear into him, and Bucky tries to imagine the sight, face and neck on fire. He’s marked all over down there, bearing marks from Steve’s hands and dripping his come, and now Steve’s giving him more, gripping him hard and driving in deep.

Bucky bites back a whine and buries his face in his hands. The fight, even the play sort, is gone from him, fucked out by Steve. It’s easier like this, to just give in and take it.

“There you are,” Steve says, stroking down Bucky’s flank. “Good boy.”

Bucky shivers, full-bodied and violent.

Steve fucks him faster, cock stroking trails of fire all along Bucky’s insides. It’s almost too much but only almost, and Steve would just fuck him through the overstimulation anyway, getting off to the sight of Bucky keening and crying.

He can tell when Steve’s about to come. His grip turns bruising, and he slams his hips harder into Bucky, shoving his cock in and out of him with newfound frenzy. Bucky drags in sobbing breaths, unable to stop tightening around Steve’s cock when errant strokes brush his prostate or hits an angle that lights his whole body up.

Steve fills him with come again, and Bucky thinks that’s the serum too, the way Steve can just fucking drench him. He likes it, not that he had a particular thing for it before Steve reintroduced him to the messy joys of unprotected sex.

By the time Steve goes soft and slips out of him, Bucky’s got a little situation between his own legs.

It doesn’t escape Steve’s notice either. He chuckles, that particular one that always worms under Bucky’s skin, and reaches down to loosely cup Bucky’s dick. It jumps at the touch, filling up more, and Steve’s no real help, just holding it like an amusing toy.

Bucky grits his teeth and determinedly doesn’t beg.

Steve doesn’t comment on it. He hauls Bucky up instead, all that inhuman strength turned to manhandling an unwieldy lover. Bucky doesn’t make it easy for him, going limp and flopping around like a wet noodle as Steve tries to corral his limbs into submission. Steve wins the battle, and Bucky finds himself kneeling in front of Steve, held in place by an arm across his stomach. Steve kisses the soft skin under his ear, making an approving noise.

Bucky shivers pleasantly.

Steve’s hand wraps around his cock, and his other one curls around Bucky’s jaw. He’s pulled into a kiss just as Steve starts stroking, and his moan is muffled by Steve’s tongue slipping into his mouth. Bucky sucks on it, all of him hot with it. Steve’s mouth is no less consuming than his cock inside Bucky’s body. He kisses like there’s nothing else he’d rather be doing, like he can spend whole lifetimes with his mouth on Bucky’s. He went years without this, first when they were fucking away their feelings and then after Bucky left the Avengers, and there are a million kisses he has to make up for. 

He groans Steve’s name when he comes, and Steve drinks it right from his lips.

They keep kissing through the aftershocks and don’t stop, all urgency pulled out of it, leaving behind something sweetly lazy. There’s nothing more calming than Steve’s hands wandering down Bucky’s body, tugging lightly at his clothed upper half and idly groping the bared expanse of skin lower down.

Bucky melts into it, into Steve, and goes where he’s led, following the siren call of Steve’s sweet lips.

Steve gets him on the bed somehow. Bucky starts taking off what’s left of his gear, but Steve takes over for him. Naked, Bucky flops on the bed, stretching his achy limbs with a soul-deep groan. Steve busies himself with cleaning up the feathers scattered across the bed, rolling Bucky out of the way as needed. Bucky watches him with lazy eyes, all of him wrung out and drowsy.

Steve kisses him gently on the mouth and murmurs something Bucky doesn’t quite catch. He gets the gist of it when Steve strips off his clothes, torn at places from their little mock-fight. Steve goes away though, paying no heed to Bucky whining after him. He comes back a few minutes later with a wet towel in his hands, and whatever expression Bucky is wearing, it makes Steve smile.

“Poor baby,” he says, climbing into bed. “Did I leave you all alone?”

“ _Yes_.”

Bucky reaches for him, gratified when Steve kisses both of his palms and lays a trail of kisses along one arm and shoulder until he reaches Bucky’s mouth. It’s a sweet, chaste kiss, and it warms Bucky somewhere deep.

“Mmm. That’s better.”

Steve looks terribly fond.

He cleans Bucky up with a gentleness that stands in stark contrast to the violence of earlier. He ghosts his lips over the worst of the bruises and pats the towel softly over Bucky’s limp cock and between his messy cheeks. Even when Steve’s done, Bucky feels wet and open, but he likes it, likes the aches in his body too.

Bucky’s almost dozing, halfway between wakefulness and sleep, mind drifting through corridors of nonsense. Steve running with him as Ross’s people shoot at them, the two of them making dinner back in Steve’s old apartment; things that never happened but could have, just real enough that Bucky startles awake when Steve slides into bed behind him and presses close.

“Did I disturb you?” he asks.

“No,” Bucky lies, pressing back into Steve’s inviting warmth. Steve’s arm comes around him, yanking Bucky that much closer, and he likes this too, how unabashed a cuddler Steve is. His warmth seems to seep into Bucky, and it should be uncomfortable, their heated bodies plastered together, but Bucky always finds that he’s greedy for this.

He's drifting again when something nudges his well-fucked hole. He barely has the time to gasp before Steve slides in, maybe half his length now inside. It’s slick, and that makes Bucky wonder so many things, but he can’t hold onto any one thought, everything too bright and hazy in his tired mind.

“Steve,” he says—whines, maybe, half a complaint.

“Ssh,” Steve says, kissing Bucky’s neck, right in that spot that makes him melt a little. “Sleep.”

“’ow can I sleep when you’re doing that?”

“Easy enough.” Steve sounds like he’s laughing, but it’s not the mean kind. “You’re already half there, sweetheart. Let it go. I’ve got you.”

Bucky shivers, and Steve slides in deeper. He doesn’t do anything much. Just keeps it inside Bucky and rocks a little, all slow and gentle, like he’s soft and breakable. It’s nice. A little odd, a little raw, but Steve’s right in the end. There’s something soothing about this, being held like this and filled up and fucked so sweetly. Bucky nods off without even being aware of it, all of him enveloped in Steve’s warmth.

-

He wakes up alone.

There’s a brief span of time, barely a minute, when Bucky thinks it was all a dream. Wouldn’t be the first time he had dreams so vivid that he woke up blearily confused by the absence of a body beside his.

But this morning, all he needs to do to confirm Steve’s corporeality is to shift a little. His entire body lights right up, throbbing with clear evidence of last night’s activities. Bucky misses being young and stupid, when he could take two guys like Steve and more or less walk it off the next day. Well, not quite like Steve. He doesn’t think his teenage self would have interested Steve and anyway, even youth could only do so much against supersoldier dick.

Bucky stretches, arching his back like a cat. He’s clean, inside and out, and he has to wonder if Steve came in him again last night. It’s a nice thought. Depraved, probably, but Bucky doesn’t give a fuck. Life’s shit, the least he can have is a nice, harmless fantasy—which likely became reality—of Steve Rogers putting his sleeping body to good use.

Bucky sighs, smiling into his pillow.

The hotel door opens and closes.

“Hey,” Steve greets, voice warm and deep. “You awake?”

“No,” Bucky tells his pillow.

The bed dips. A hand slides up and down Bucky’s spine, digging pleasantly into the muscles there.

“I got breakfast,” Steve says, trying to lure Bucky out. “Come on, pal. I can hear your stomach growling.”

“No, you can’t,” Bucky protests but gets up anyway, eyes half-closed as he snuggles up to Steve. He hears Steve murmur something suspiciously like ‘Cute’ but then he’s kissing Bucky and thoroughly distracting him.

Bucky basks in the attention for a few moments, then pulls away.

“Bathroom,” he grunts. “Should ask you to carry me there.”

“Now why’s that?” Steve asks, looking on with amusement as Bucky wriggles out of bed.

“You know what you did, Steve.”

“Alright, come on then. I’ll carry you.”

Bucky darts away from Steve’s reaching hand, hissing when that makes parts of his body express their mounting displeasure.

“Nope. I don’t trust you near my ass anymore. Animal.”

Steve’s laugher follows him into the bathroom, and Bucky finds that he can’t stop smiling either.

-

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Bucky says over breakfast, which turns out to be sandwiches and croissants from some nearby café. They’re good, though the sheer size of the spread is intimidating until Steve starts diminishing it in record time.

“Said I’d come,” Steve says through a mouthful of bread. It’s disgusting. Bucky can’t stop watching. “Ran a little late, that’s all.”

“A week late. You were supposed to meet me in Prague.”

“Couldn’t get away in time.” Steve seems genuinely apologetic about it, eyes and eyebrows doing a Thing. “Thought I’d surprise you.”

“If you promise to keep surprising me like this, I’ll stop telling you where I’m going.”

“Aw, Buck, don’t do that,” Steve says, hitting Bucky with the devastating force of his baby blues. “Then I’ll have to ask Nat to find you for me, and she’s too invested in my sex life as it is. You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”

“Jesus, asshole, you don’t play fair.”

Steve smiles winningly and returns to demolishing his food. Neither of them mentions how Bucky’s not actually going to cut Steve off like that because he’s as balls-deep in this as Steve. Their meetings are dependent on erratic schedules and communication devices as illegal as they are. Ross hasn’t let up on his manhunt, but Steve and the others have made an art out of swooping in like avenging angels and vanishing before Ross can so much as smell them. And Bucky’s having fun leading a life of crime spiced up with a little vigilantism and a lot of leading Ross’s people on merry goose chases.

Speaking of Ross though—

“We should leave soon,” he tells Steve. “They know I’m here. Well, they know I’m in Rio. Don’t think they’ll find this place soon, but better safe than sorry.”

“Fair enough. Want us to drop you somewhere again?”

“Thanks, but I’ll have to pass. Got something to do in São Paulo.”

“Work or pleasure?”

Bucky gives Steve a flat look.

“Pal, you’re the only pleasure I get these days. Work. You wanna come watch?”

Steve finishes the last of his food and leans back in his chair, eyeing Bucky curiously.

“That an invitation?”

“Why, you got something better to do?”

Steve’s grin is bright and blinding and an answer in itself.

-

It’s still a little surreal. Bucky’s used to running missions with Steve that are all about truth and justice and saving the world. Unlike Nat or even Clint, Bucky has never worked with him in S.H.I.E.L.D and anyway, he doubts Fury put Steve up to anything he couldn’t justify in some way. Steve was no one’s fool from the beginning, and Bucky can’t see him being a meek puppet for S.H.I.E.L.D or Hydra or whoever was running the show those days.

But he’s also taken to life as a fugitive with surprising grace and doesn’t clutch his pearls each time Bucky mentions—deliberately casual but with his heart in his throat—doing something morally dubious for fun and profit.

Of course, what truly makes the whole situation so fucking weird isn’t that Captain America seems to have become oddly cavalier about crime. It’s more that before the Accords plunged most of them into deep shit, _Bucky_ was the morally dubious thing Steve did on a regular basis.

On the drive from Rio, Bucky finds it hard to keep his eyes on the road. Steve doesn’t look like Steve. He came out of the bathroom in a dark wig and one of those handy face-meshes. Now, he sits on the passenger seat looking blandly handsome. Easy on the eyes but with none of his usual jaw-dropping beauty. Bucky still can’t stop looking over at him, and Steve has to notice with how superbly unsubtle Bucky’s being, but he doesn’t mention a word. When their eyes meet, Steve just smiles, soft and fond, like it’s always been that simple.

It's an odd system they’ve developed. Steve’s the one who visits, not because Bucky doesn’t want to reciprocate but because it’s safer this way. Ross is infinitely more invested in Steve and his team. He’s a symbol, and he also happens to have Wanda on his team. Her powers terrify Ross, that much they’ve gathered. And the Secret Avengers or whoever they are now keep doing what they always did except with far less legitimacy and keep getting away with it too. It’s not just Ross who’s pissed off, but he’s an easy face to spit at.

Point is that it’s easier for Bucky to give Steve and his team enough information than they can track him down as needed than it is for Steve to tell Bucky where he’ll be going next. Bucky does wind up in the Quinjet with the rest now and then, but he doesn’t like it much. He prefers it this way, just the two of them, being bi and doing crime.

-

“How’d it go?” Steve asks when Bucky comes back.

He doesn’t answer the question immediately, taking a long moment to just drink in the sight of Steve sprawled out on the couch that’s a touch too small for his frame. It’s a safe house this time, and Bucky’s more possessive of these than he is of random hotel rooms. Maybe that’s why it makes his chest go tight and hot to see Steve there, comfortable in Bucky’s space and making no secret of it.

If he sat down and tried to trace the twists in life that got him to this point, he’d go crazy within five minutes. But Bucky wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“Buck?” Steve asks, setting aside a book he was reading. He looks concerned now, blue eyes running over Bucky as if checking for damage in the way he’s holding himself.

“I’m fine,” Bucky croaks. “And it went okay. Scared some rich asshole for another rich asshole. Child’s play.”

Steve looks him over again, though the quirk of his mouth and narrowed eyes tell a very different story this time. Bucky’s suddenly very self-conscious of his all-black ensemble and glad that he took off the mask after the mission was done. The worst—best?—thing is that he looks good and knows it, but Steve still makes him feel clumsy and wrong-footed, but in a fun way, like all he’d have to do is drop to his knees by Steve’s feet and Steve will make it all better, make him _better_.

“My big, scary guy,” Steve murmurs, and Bucky flushes hot.

It’s not the very deliberate mockery in Steve’s voice that does it. It’s the way his mouth curves easily around calling Bucky _his_ guy, the phrase slipping out so easily, like it’s natural, like he truly doesn’t fear that Bucky will cut and run. It’s not a trust Bucky feels particularly deserving of, but he hoards it like a greedy dragon, every inch of him curled sharp and protective around these moments when Steve lets slip—something. Something he can’t name.

“What does it say that sometimes, I’m glad the Accords happened?”

Steve sits up slowly. Bucky takes a dazed moment to accept that yes, he really did ask that.

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

Bucky drives the heels of his palms into his eyes, rubbing viciously. Flesh is kinder than metal, and he hisses a little when his left eye throbs in pain. And he doesn’t hear Steve move, but he’s there just like that, long fingers wrapping around Bucky’s wrists and pulling them away from his face.

“Don’t mind me,” Bucky mutters. “I’m just a dramatic bitch today.”

“Today?” Steve kisses him lingeringly on both eyelids, the gesture sweeter than words can capture. “Pal, I’ve got news for you.”

“Shut up,” Bucky grumbles unconvincingly. He opens his eyes and meets Steve’s. There’s no judgement in them, only open curiosity.

“What did you mean then?” he asks.

Bucky licks his lips, stalling more than anything. Steve’s a patient fucker though, and he doesn’t play fair, thumbs stroking gently along Bucky’s cheeks and jaw as if he doesn’t know that kind of shit short-circuits Bucky’s brain and re-nders him stupidly honest.

“Wouldn’t have this otherwise,” he blurts out.

He runs out of words then, but he doesn’t really need to elaborate. Steve’s a smart guy, he’ll know exactly what Bucky’s saying and not saying.

For a long time, Steve’s quiet. He doesn’t step away though, doesn’t stop stroking Bucky’s face. Bucky’s loath to pull away despite a part of him wanting to just twist into a defensive ball. He stays, all but vibrating against Steve’s body, restlessly searching a face that gives away nothing but a terrifying thoughtfulness.

“I prefer to see it as a silver lining,” Steve says in the end. “The Avengers fell apart, and the world is against us. But I have my team. I have you.”

“When you put it like that, doesn’t seem worth it.” Bucky chuckles, but the sound comes out rather grotesque. “Forget I said anything.”

He does pull away this time. Well, he tries. Steve doesn’t let him, following Bucky’s body with his own, pressing the two of them together torso-to-torso. A thumb rests gently against his lips, and there’s no way Steve can’t feel the shuddering exhale Bucky lets slip.

“Didn’t say I was complaining,” Steve tells him. “Didn’t say I’d change anything.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Everything that happened, they happened for a reason. World could only take so much of aliens and superpowers before something gave. Wish it’d happened in a kinder way, but we work with what we’ve got. And you—Buck, I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be.” There’s a part of Bucky that’s screaming at him to shut the fuck up and not ruin a good thing. “Maybe you’re better off without me.”

“We tried that,” Steve reminds him. “We needed to, and we did. You still think we’re bad for each other?”

Bucky mutely shakes his head. A tension he didn’t even know Steve was packing slides out of the body pressed up against his. He sees the kiss coming—Steve projects it a mile away and holds Bucky’s gaze until their mouths meet. It’s a slow, lazy thing, almost like they’re talking without the words and the worries. Bucky runs his hand along Steve’s shoulders, marveling at the strength that can hold up a world.

They part, but Steve doesn’t go far, resting his forehead against Bucky’s. There’s something about it that’s more achingly intimate than having Steve buried to the hilt in him. Bucky feels exposed, splayed open, but he doesn’t want to shy away. He embraces the torn open parts of him, leaves them bare for Steve to reach into and hold.

“For what it’s worth,” Steve says, “I like to think we’d have found each other anyway.”

“Didn’t think you’d be one for fate.”

“It’s not like that. I don’t know, Buck—all this history, and look at us now. Doesn’t that give you hope?”

Bucky kisses Steve, half because he wants to, half to buy himself some time to think. It backfires though. With Steve’s mouth moving softly over his, with his hands holding Bucky like he’s precious, it’s hard to think of anything else.

“I’m scared,” Bucky finds himself saying, lips brushing Steve’s. “That it’ll get fucked up again. Ain’t got a great track record with relationships, Steve. I walked out on you because that was the only good thing I knew how to do for us.”

“People change. You said it yourself.”

“Still scared.”

“Yeah.” Steve breathes slow and warm against Bucky’s mouth. “That’s fair.”

“Take me to bed?”

Steve does. Bucky likes this about him, the way he doesn’t push. Maybe it’s because they have a bad history when it comes to that, but Bucky gets the impression that Steve’s just doing what he’d like others to do for him.

That doesn’t mean Steve Rogers ever shuts up and doesn’t make his point be heard loud and clear. He just finds other, creative ways to do it.

This time, that happens to be Bucky stripped slowly and with exacting care, not allowed to do so much as lift a finger as Steve peels the clothes off him one by one. Bucky’s knees are weak and his bones liquid by the time he’s naked, his skin tingling in places where Steve’s mouth pressed to it in sweet, absent kisses. Then he’s laid on the bed, Steve looming over him, the same posture that’s been threatening so many times now turned protective.

Bucky doesn’t know how he does it, how the same hands that hurt him so good make him feel safe and cherished, how the mouth that cuts him as deep as any blade murmurs praise that warms him down to his soul.

He used to want only the former, back when they started this, but somewhere between a thousand false-starts, Bucky’s learned to soak up the latter the way he’s always ached to.

Steve takes his time, doesn’t enter Bucky until he’s trembling with need and raw in places he can’t touch. He fucks him slow and steady, thorough but leaving marks that won’t show, not unless someone pries open Bucky’s heart and takes a good, long look at its throbbing truth.

-

It's not always that easy, of course. Bucky’s good, but he’s not infallible, and you don’t last in this business without making enemies that are worth their salt. When he uses the phone—burner, half a relic already—he consoles himself that at least it wasn’t Ross’s men. That would have been insult to injury, and he’d have to retire and maybe convince Steve to take him to some tropical island where Bucky can sunbath in the nude and sip at those fancy drinks with umbrellas on them and pretend to be Steve’s trophy husband.

He’s pretty sure that’s the painkillers talking, but it’s a nice thought all the same.

-

“Are you sure—”

“So help me god, if you ask me one more time whether I need something, I’ll throw this juice at your fucking head.”

Steve’s mouth clicks shut. Bucky sighs explosively and finishes his goddamn orange juice.

“Don’t make me regret calling you.”

Steve gives him a very put-upon look. As if he’d deal with any more grace at anyone mother-henning him like this. Bucky scows back until Steve looks away with a shake of his head.

“Fine,” he lies. “Want me to get Sam to take over?”

“Fuck no. He’s worse than you and also, he hates me.”

“Sam doesn’t hate you, Bucky,” Steve explains with the tired patience of someone who’s said this exact same sentence ten times in the course of forty-eight hours.

“Yeah, right.”

They have an odd stare-off where neither party’s sure exactly what they’re being stubborn about but isn’t prepared to just give in. Shit like that keeps happening. Bucky thinks that he’s being granted a sneak peek into what domesticity with Steve Rogers will be like.

It's guaranteed to drive him insane within a week, and there’s probably something very wrong with him for wanting it anyway.

“Come sit with me,” Bucky says, needlessly aggressive considering the content of his words. “I have a broken leg.”

“You have a sprained ankle,” Steve corrects, but he obediently makes his way to Bucky. “You do have two cracked ribs.”

“I’m suffering.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

Steve doesn’t make Bucky get any more direct than that. His kisses are the best medicine. Doctors should bottle that shit, they’d make a killing, but then Bucky would be forced to make some very literal killings.

“Kinda like you like this,” Steve says once they come up for air. “You’re very sweet.”

“I threatened to throw juice at your head literally five minutes ago.”

“Sweet,” Steve insists.

“God, this is why I don’t keep you around for your wit. Less talking, more kissing.”

Steve’s laughing when Bucky yanks him down by the neck, and Bucky should be offended by that, probably, but he doesn’t have the shits to give at the moment.

-

“Thank you,” Steve says a couple of days into Bucky’s recuperation.

“Pretty sure that’s my line.”

Bucky cracks an eye open and finds Steve hovering over him like some creep, smiling down at Bucky with an unbearably soft expression on his face. Bucky closes his eye again in sheer self-defense.

“It’s okay, I know you’re an ungrateful wench.”

“Wha—fuck you, oh god. Why does anyone think you’re nice?”

“The red, white, and blue fooled ‘em all.”

Bucky shakes his head and does open his eyes this time, giving up on the sleep that was evading him anyway. Steve’s smirking, looking too damn pleased with himself. It’s too stunning a sight for Bucky to look away or gather enough brain cells for an adequate reply.

“For calling me when you got hurt,” Steve says, expression softening. “I know that couldn’t have been easy.”

It’s a little terrifying, how easily Steve reads him these days. Elements of it have always been there in their relationship, but only in sex and in the battlefield, not in this kind of casual emotional devastation. It makes Bucky wonder if he’s letting it happen, letting Steve in.

It’s not the worst thing in the world.

“I could have dealt it with it on my own,” Bucky says, well-aware that Steve already knows. The injuries aren’t that severe. “But I dunno. Didn’t want to. Knew I didn’t have to.”

That, too, is nothing Steve doesn’t already know. Bucky made it pretty damn obvious. And the thing is, Steve returned the trust in kind, whisking Bucky off on the Quinjet with an alacrity that was honestly as alarming as it was charming. Now they’re holed up in one of Natasha’s safe houses, and Steve’s staying with him to play doctor.

Now, there’s an idea.

“You don’t,” Steve says before Bucky can follow that line of thought too deep down the rabbit hole. “Buck, you never have to. You could—you could stay. You know that, right?”

Bucky takes a moment to formulate a response. He wasn’t expecting this again, not when he shot Steve down the last time.

“Safety in numbers?” he asks quietly. “No thanks.”

“I—yeah.” Steve looks confused, staring intently at Bucky. “But it’s not just that. I worry about you. I know you can take care of yourself. But almost the whole world is set against people like us. I’d rather have you with me.”

It’s Bucky’s turn to be confused. He tries to convey as much by expression alone, but Steve just looks back with a furrow between his brows that’s oddly disarming. Did he forget?

“Steve, you didn’t want me on your team. You said that. Remember? And I appreciate you wanting to look out for me, but I don’t need it.”

Steve doesn’t seem to have heard anything past the first sentence.

“I didn’t say that,” he says, a little too loud. “Buck, I’d never.”

“In France,” Bucky snaps. “I asked if you wanted me to suit up. You said no.”

Steve opens and closes his mouth a few times, expression so starkly incredulous that Bucky starts to feel self-conscious. He pushes himself upright, and Bucky would do the same except that his ribs wouldn’t appreciate that and that would derail the conversation pretty fast.

“Buck,” Steve says. He sounds helpless. “Bucky, you got _out_. I didn’t want to drag you back in. It wasn’t that—of course I wanted you on my team. Sweetheart, we work together like a dream.”

“Oh.” Bucky searches Steve’s face for any hint of artifice, knowing all too well that he’s going to find none. “I thought—”

He shrugs. A grimace crosses Steve’s lips, then softens into a bitter sort of smile. But when he speaks, he only sounds fond.

“You earned your peace, Buck. I wasn’t going to take that away.”

“I’d have come if you’d asked.”

“That’s why I didn’t ask.”

Bucky holds that bright blue gaze for as long as he can stand. He looks away then, his breath shuddering through him.

“Well, now I feel like a dumbass.”

Steve doesn’t laugh. His knuckles graze Bucky’s cheek, as soft as any kiss.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer. The offer stands, Buck. Stay with us. It’s not just safety in numbers. I’d like it if you stayed. Fought beside me.”

Bucky considers it.

Last time Steve asked, he made it sound so impersonal. Sure, he’d let Bucky tag alone because it was safer that way and Steve was a born leader. Team above himself, always. At least that’s how Bucky interpreted the offer. It’s not all on him. Steve gave him no reason to think otherwise.

But now…

In the end, it’s not that Bucky doesn’t believe him.

“No. It didn’t work out so well, the last time we were on a team together.”

“That won’t happen again,” Steve says, his voice a curious mix of resignation and determination. He believes what he’s saying, but he also believes Bucky has made up his mind.

That’s an attractive quality in a guy.

“I know,” Bucky says, only half to mollify Steve. “But this is good, what we’re doing now. Let’s not mess with a good thing, yeah?”

Steve shakes his head. He looks a little sad, but he brightens when he looks over at Bucky. He lies down again, pressing close but careful not to jostle Bucky. He’s not that delicate, doesn’t need to be treated like glass, but Steve gets these ideas into his head and then it’s so hard to get them out.

“Promise you’ll call if you get hurt again.”

“I don’t make a habit of it.”

“Buck.”

Bucky sighs.

“God, fine. I’ll call.”

They seal it with a kiss.

All in all, it’s not the worst week of his life.

-

Bucky spends his thirty-sixth birthday getting shot at, which is also how he’s spent the vast majority of his birthdays since the nineteenth.

After though—after’s nice.

“What do the others have to say about you sneaking out to meet me so much?”

“I’m not sneaking out,” Steve says with no small amount of indignation. “I’m a grown man, not a lovesick teenager.”

Bucky snorts and waits for an actual answer, but there’s none forthcoming. He sneaks a look at Steve and finds him looking down at his hands, lost in thought. They’re on a beach in Shizuoka. Steve rented them a little house, their pocket of peace for a couple of days.

It's gratuitously romantic, but Bucky’s a little terrified of pointing that out. He’d have been happy with a candle on a cupcake and Steve fucking him through a mattress.

He’s still happy of course, just more than he knows what to do with. The old Bucky would have run for the hills, but he wasn’t joking when he told Steve he did a lot of soul-searching in those two years. First step wasn’t admitting he wanted more than brutal sex from Steve, it was accepting how badly he wanted more out of _life_.

“Steve,” Bucky nudges when the minutes crawl by, and Steve doesn’t emerge from wherever he went to in his own head. “Don’t tell me you brought me to a place this pretty just to zone out.”

Steve laughs. It’s a strangely nervous sound. He obediently looks out at the beach but lasts maybe a minute before his eyes turn to Bucky. There’s something unbearably flattering about that which brings heat rushing to Bucky’s face every time.

“What was the question again?” Steve asks.

Bucky knows full well that Steve’s got an iron trap of a mind and forgets literally nothing, but he indulges the lovable asshole anyway.

“What does Sam, Nat, and Wanda think about you coming to see me all the time? Not to mention all…this.”

“I think they know,” Steve says, sounding supremely unbothered by that. “Think they think it’s something new though. I’m not sure. Wanda’s too involved in her own love life to be overinvested in mine. Sam works on a no-details-please policy. Can’t get a read on what Nat knows and how much she knows, but that’s Natasha for you.”

“Yeah. I miss those fuckers.”

“You could always—”

“Steven Grant Rogers.”

“Alright, alright.”

They stay on the beach until dusk turns the sky pink and pretty. Bucky curls his right pinkie around Steve’s and feels an undignified thrill when Steve mirrors the gesture.

“Take me home,” he says, resting his head on Steve’s shoulder. “Give me a night to remember.”

They don’t have a home anymore, either of them. But Bucky wouldn’t really mind if Steve were his home for the night. He’s starting to think, the thought a little scary still, that he wouldn’t mind if Steve were his home for the rest of his sorry life.

-

The mood shifts drastically between the beach and the idyllic little house they’ve rented. Bucky can’t pinpoint the change. Maybe it’s those long, longing glances that turn heavy and wanting. Maybe it’s the way their arms brush when they walk, fleeting touches that make him ache for more.

They take a meandering path to the beach house, walking slower than necessary, touching a little less than they can get away with. It’s not the kind of thing they’ve ever done before. Bucky savors the building tension and the anticipation heavy in the air. He stops for a while to let the waves lap at his feet and stretches his body, arching his back and tilting his neck to the side, feeling Steve’s gaze like a physical weight.

The look in Steve’s eyes when he turns around is full of promise.

They make it back eventually. The air inside is thick with tension. Bucky wastes no time stripping, dropping sand-crusted clothes on the floor. He can feel Steve watching him, and when he turns to look, Steve’s shirtless and barefooted, pants slung low on his hips. He’s a vision, and he’s all Bucky’s, but what makes his blood rush is the light in Steve’s eyes, something gleaming and predatory.

“Hey there,” Bucky taunts, stretching his naked body and groaning a little louder than necessary. “You just gonna stand there and look, buddy?”

Steve’s on him like an animal. He’s slammed into the wall, and the kiss Steve presses to his mouth draws blood. It makes Bucky _burn_ , waves of fire licking up his gut, rising through him like a tidal wave. He doesn’t fight, kissing back with equal fervor, sucking on Steve’s tongue and biting down on his lips, grinning with blood on his mouth when that makes Steve’s hips jerk forward, grinding his burgeoning hard-on against Bucky’s thigh.

Steve tears his mouth away abruptly. He’s flushed and his eyes are dark, but his expression is one of familiar calculation as he surveys Bucky.

Bucky tries to lean in and kiss him again, but Steve’s hand shoots forward lightning-fast and pins Bucky to the wall by the throat.

“That’s more like it,” Bucky says, grinning wide and delighted. “I like that look in your eyes, Stevie.”

Steve caresses Bucky’s cheek, soft for a second before he pulls back and slaps him hard across the face.

Bucky yelps, pain bursting along one side of his face. It’s a powerful blow, enough to have knocked him down save for Steve’s hand on his throat, but that just makes him choke instead, struggling to pull in air as he blinks back the instinctive swell of tears.

Steve waits until Bucky attains a measure of composure before backhanding him on the other side. And this time, he lets go of his throat, and Bucky does crash to the floor, knees flaring as they hit the ground.

Steve fists a hand in his hair and tilts his head back cruelly. Bucky looks at him through vision gone blurry and thinks this is how it feels to worship.

“Open your mouth,” Steve says, fingers already working on his fly. “Watch the teeth.”

That only ever means one thing, and Bucky gets a few seconds to prepare himself before Steve’s ramming his monster of a cock down his throat. He gags, trying helplessly to get away, but Steve’s grip on his hair turns punishing as it shoves Bucky forward onto his dick. He chokes and sputters around the intrusion, lungs burning and eyes giving up the battle with tears. They stream down his face, drip down his chin, turn his collar uncomfortably wet.

Steve looks down at him like Bucky’s the best thing he’s ever seen.

He presses forward, sliding his cock further down Bucky’s throat until his nose is buried in the wild curls of hair at Steve’s groin. Steve gentles his grip then, not enough that Bucky can pull away, but to massage those fingers against his scalp, creating a cascade of soothing pleasure that’s in stark contrast to the helpless convulsions of his throat around Steve’s dick.

Steve pulls out much slower than he pushed in, taking his sweet time. The head drags along Bucky’s tongue, dripping precum, and Bucky shudders at the taste, already hungry for more.

When Steve stills, his cockhead is pressed to Bucky’s lips, nudging absently. Bucky swallows. His throat aches in a dull, dry way. The pain on his cheeks is sharper, both of them already swelling. He’ll be a sight in the morning.

“God,” Steve breathes. “Look at you.”

Bucky closes his eyes. Steve presses forward again, and Bucky doesn’t need to yanked into it anymore. He opens his mouth, his throat, lets Steve slide in deep and carve himself a space in everything Bucky can offer. Steve fucks his mouth lazily, stopping now and then with the whole thing just buried in Bucky’s mouth. He can’t breathe then, but he can marvel, body and soul thrumming at how well he takes Steve, like he’s been made just for this.

“Sweetheart,” Steve croons, thumbing a reddening handprint on Bucky’s cheek. “Happy down there?”

Bucky nods with a mouthful of dick. The pleased, proud look on Steve’s face hooks into his gut.

Steve doesn’t break eye contact as he starts to move again. It’s not as gentle, not as kind, and Bucky holds on for as long as he can, Steve’s darkened blues a lifeline, but it’s not long before his lids clamp shut. Steve starts fucking his face in earnest, and Bucky doesn’t have to do anything, just be a warm, sweet hole and let himself be moved to Steve’s rhythm.

He cries, can’t help it, sniffling around Steve’s cock and sobbing when he’s got the breath for it. Steve murmurs things to him, half-crooning, half-mocking endearments that make Bucky tremble deep inside.

“You want it down your throat or on your face?” Steve asks. The words take a long time to resolve into something meaningful, and Bucky just blinks helplessly up at Steve. It’s too late anyway, Steve making the decision for him, pulling out with a groan that seems torn out of his soul.

“Eyes shut,” he growls, fisting his cock.

Bucky closes them tightly, breath picking up at the wet sounds of Steve’s hand on his dick. The first splatter falls on his swollen cheek, warm and sticky. More of it drenches him, covering his mouth, his nose, his hair, until Bucky’s whole face is burning in a myriad of ways. Tears and come trickle down his neck, and it’s disgusting, and Bucky loves it.

Steve grabs his hair again, pulls his head back. Bucky makes a soft noise as his mouth pops open. He licks his lip and tastes a tangy blend of fluids. Steve’s mouth is on his the next second, licking the mess of Bucky’s mouth and chin, then licking inside as if to share the taste.

“Steve,” Bucky says—or tries. It comes out garbled between the angle of his jaw and Steve’s tongue down his throat.

“Bucky,” Steve murmurs, fondness lacing his tone. He peppers fleeting kisses all along Bucky’s face, and that’s sweet, but there’s nothing sweet about the bare toes that trail up Bucky’s throbbing dick.

Bucky gasps, once again left looking up at Steve with a pitiful gaze and no hope of mercy. Steve’s too damn good at balancing on one leg and playing with Bucky’s cock with his foot, and it should look ridiculous, but that’s the last thought in Bucky’s head when he’s being tormented with the lightest of pressure right where he needs it the most.

“Steve, please,” he begs.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Steve says softly, like he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing. “You wanna come?”

“ _Please_.”

Steve slowly lifts Bucky’s cock, the back of his curled toes pressed under the head. It’s an odd sensation, but it steals Bucky’s breath, makes him gasp and pant as Steve pins his dick to the flat of his belly. Bucky starts shaking and can’t stop, all that tension with nowhere to go.

Steve drops his foot abruptly, and Bucky’s cock bounces against his stomach. He cries out, high and startled.

“Up you get,” Steve says, chiding like he’s not the one who sent Bucky to his knees and kept him there. “Not done with you yet. Birthday baby, ain’t ya? Gotta treat you right.”

Steve already treats him right. Any more, and Bucky might have to leave this place in an ambulance. Would be worth it.

He doesn’t quite get his feet under him in time. Steve pulls him up by the hair, bracing Bucky’s staggering body with his own and eating his pained groan right off his lips. And he apparently decides Bucky can’t be trusted with independent motor function because the next thing Bucky knows, he’s being swept up into a fireman’s carry, flung over Steve’s colossal shoulder like a sad sack of potatoes.

“Hey!” he yelps, struggling on instinct. He doesn’t think Steve registers his pounding fists as anything more than a light massage, and his legs are effectively immobilized by Steve’s arm across the knees. It’s an embarrassing way to be hauled around, but of course Bucky’s dick thinks it’s the best thing ever. There’s no way Steve can’t feel it drooling against his skin.

Steve dumps him unceremoniously on the bed. Bucky bounces once and then lies there, sprawled on his back with his legs spread wide. Steve doesn’t join him, just circles around to stand at the foot of the bed, blue eyes intense and unwavering. Bucky tries to breathe deep and stay calm, but his skin prickles self-consciously. He wants to close his legs and curl into a defensive ball, but Steve’s stare keeps him frozen in place, exposed and burning with it.

A smile quirks Steve’s lips, faintly approving.

“Turn around,” he orders.

Bucky feels clumsy, his limbs all heavy, as he wrangles his body onto all fours.

“Cute,” comes Steve’s verdict, as fond as it is condescending. “How long can you stay like that?”

Bucky has to swallow a couple of time before he can answer.

“As long as you need me to.”

“Don’t need you to do anything but lie there and look pretty,” Steve says promptly, voice rich with some kind of unholy delight. “What I _want_ you to do, on the other hand…”

He trails off, but his hand smooths suggestively up Bucky’s inner thigh.

The bed shifts when Steve climbs in. He settles between Bucky’s legs, his favorite fucking position. It’s the most natural thing in the world to accommodate him, to spread his thighs wider for Steve’s bulk.

“What’s the date today, Bucky?”

“March 11?”

“You don’t sound very sure.”

“I—I am. It’s March 11.”

“Better. We’re a day late. Think one’s enough to compensate? Actually, no. Let’s round it up. An even forty.”

“What?” Bucky asks, confused but aroused simply from that particular tone Steve’s using. It usually spells trouble for Bucky, the kind that leaves him shaky on his feet for days and buzzing inside in the best kind of way.

“Birthday spankings,” Steve chirps brightly. “It’s tradition, Buck. Can’t mess with that, right?”

“Oh my god.”

“I want you to count for me,” Steve says, affecting a tone of painstaking patience. “If you don’t, you know what I’ll do, Buck?”

“You’ll—you’ll start over?” Bucky says, voice a blend of terror and need.

“You’d like that too much, pal. Nah. I’ll just stop. You want that, Buck?”

Bucky shakes his head frantically.

“No, no, fuck, I won’t—I won’t lose count, I swear.

“That’s my guy,” Steve murmurs, kissing Bucky on the base of his spine. “Such a good boy.”

The praise sinks into Bucky’s bones, makes him feel as light as a feather. The first hit barely registers, and when it does, it’s almost too late.

“One,” he hurriedly says, heart in his throat.

Steve hums, the sound not particularly pleased.

“Sorry,” Bucky adds, face burning, eyes smarting again.

The next few blows land in rapid succession. Bucky chants the numbers, voice high and clear. It doesn’t hurt, not yet. Steve’s not using even a fraction of his strength, and it’s less a warm-up than a tease. Bucky keeps his mouth shut though, dutifully reciting the numbers, being good.

The sixth is a hard smack landing right where his left cheek meets the thigh.

“Six,” Bucky gasps, blinking away tears.

“Yeah,” Steve breathes. “That’s it, sweetheart.”

Steve stops playing around after that. Bucky stays upright on sheer willpower, but the restraint is stripped from his voice blow by blow, until each successive number is a shout, strong and harsh or weak and trembling, torn out of him by Steve’s merciless palms coming down hard on both cheeks. They go from pleasantly warm to hot and searing within the span of a few blows. By the time they’re at twenty, Bucky’s shaking violently and a fresh wave of tears have drenched his cheeks.

“Twenty-one,” he whimpers.

Steve’s nail catches on a patch of skin, ripping open a trail of fire.

“T-twenty, four, Steve, please, _please_.”

By thirty, Bucky’s sobbing, and Steve has moved his tender mercies to the insides of his cheeks, one hand keeping them spread while the other rains down blows that make Bucky see stars.

Steve stops after thirty-five, rubbing gently over the raised, reddened flesh as Bucky heaves for breath and tries not to collapse.

“Easy,” Steve says. “Almost done, pal. You’re doing so well.”

“I can’t—” Bucky cuts off, gulping in air into his burning lungs.

“’Course you can,” Steve assures him, calm and confident. “You’ve had worse.”

Maybe he has, but it’s real hard right now to think of anything except how his entire ass is a pulsing mass of pain. Steve doesn’t leave him much time to think. The smack is almost gentle, but Bucky’s been damn near tenderized and even a breeze would smart like a cut.

“Thirty-six,” he whimpers. The sheet tears under his grip. Steve hits him on his right side, light and open-palmed. “Thirty-seven, oh god, _Steve_.”

Steve hushes him and two loud slaps echo in the room. Bucky’s elbows give out, and he keens into the pillow. Steve pinches his thigh, a warning.

“’erty-eight,” Bucky gasps. “Thirty, ah, thirty-nine.”

“Just one more,” Steve says soothingly. “Where do you want it, baby?”

Bucky just whines, shaking his head.

“Ssh. It’s okay, I know just the place.”

Bucky knows what’s coming. He tries to prepare for it, but it doesn’t matter. The blow’s gentler than before, but Steve’s fingertips catch his hole, firm and deliberate, and Bucky screams soundlessly, whole body tightening with a shudder.

“Bucky,” Steve prods, thumb absently rubbing at his hole.

“F-forty, forty, please.”

“Ssh, it’s alright, it’s over. You did so good, Buck. So good for me.”

Steve leans over him, kisses his neck, his shoulder, the back of his ear. Bucky turns his head, lets Steve kiss the side of his mouth, and it’s awkward and hardly a proper kiss, but it’s still a balm to his aching soul.

“So good,” Steve repeats, lips pressed to Bucky’s cheek. “I think you deserve a reward, don’t you?”

“Steve, sir, _Steve_.”

Steve kisses him, again and again, calming little brushes of his mouth all over Bucky’s back, a few in his hair, on his cheeks. Steve licks at his tears, hums in approval, and presses down with his body when Bucky shivers under him.

“You can have my cock,” Steve tells him, tone pitched low and grave like he’s doing Bucky a favor.

And he is; that’s the thing that gets Bucky all twisted up, the way his whole body turns live and eager at the thought of being stuffed full of Steve’s dick. Steve doesn’t miss his reaction. There’s a smile on his face when he presses it to the nape of Bucky’s neck.

“Tell you what,” Steve says. “I’ll even let you choose. How about that, pal? You gonna tell me how you want it?”

“No,” Bucky mumbles.

“Hm? What was that?”

“No,” he says, voice a little stronger but still muffled by the pillow. His face burns, his ass and thighs are on _fire_. “Don’t—don’t make me choose, don’t wanna choose.”

“Aw.” Steve sounds like Bucky being a weak little wreck is the most adorable thing he’s ever seen. “Alright, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

Bucky lets his body melt into the bed at those words, trembling knees finally giving in. Steve follows him down and stays plastered against his back for a few seconds, the warmth of him a heavy, grounding weight.

Then the weight vanishes, and Bucky’s needy whine is cut short by Steve rolling him onto his back with effortless ease. He doesn’t stop there, shifting so he’s reclining with his back to the headboard before carefully maneuvering Bucky into his lap. Steve positions him just right, his cock nestled between Bucky’s ass and the rest of him draped like a heavy blanket over Steve.

Bucky buries his face in the crook of Steve’s neck and breathes in the sweat of him.

There’s something so nice about Steve just moving him this way and that, not even bothering to make a secret of how much stronger he is than Bucky. It makes him feel small and kitten-weak in a good way, in the best way. He’s free, like this, to just give up and give in and let Steve have it all.

Bucky doesn’t move even when Steve’s muscles tense and ripple in ways that suggest movement. The quiet click of the lube being opened tells him what’s coming, and anticipation curls into a tight knot in his gut.

A finger prods at him hole, light and evaluative.

“You don’t need much,” Steve says with a lazy confidence that goes right to Bucky’s full, leaking dick. “Open from the morning, aren’t you?”

Question’s rhetorical. Bucky knows that tone. And it’s true. He could take Steve without fingers and anyway, it’s not like Steve hasn’t been rougher with him before. Not like Bucky hasn’t whined and begged and mewled for more.

Steve’s hand accidentally smears lube on Bucky’s skin when he fists himself. There’s something filthy about that, a spark of shame that runs electric down Bucky’s spine. He can’t say why these tiny details get to him sometimes, get him hot, and he doesn’t care, really. He likes it, and he knows that if he tried to gasp all shy-like and squirm away, Steve would stop him. Pin him down and fuck him full. He likes that too.

“We’re chatty today,” Steve says, blatantly amused. Bucky didn’t realize he was talking out loud. “You’re not going anywhere now though, Buck. Fucked out on me. I can tell.”

Bucky mumbles a vague affirmative into Steve’s neck.

“Too bad,” Steve says. He takes his hand off his cock and smacks Bucky’s ass after, laughing when it makes him yelp in pain. “You’re gonna ride me.”

“But—but I’m—”

Steve says nothing, projecting patience with his silence. Bucky forces his clumsy tongue to push out more words.

“I don’t know if I can,” he whispers, face hot.

Steve grabs his shoulder and pushes him upright. Bucky hangs like a ragdoll in his grip, frayed at the edges in a way that comes from being thoroughly loved.

“But you can,” Steve tells him gently. “You can do it, and you’re going to do it. Know why, Bucky?”

Bucky blinks down at Steve, not quite breathing. Steve’s smile is a bright, fierce thing.

“Because you’re mine, and I’m telling you to.”

Tears, inexplicably, spring to Bucky’s eyes. They trickle down his cheeks, wet and warm.

“Hey, hey,” Steve murmurs, wiping Bucky’s tears with a whisper-soft brush of his knuckles. “Sweetheart. You’re alright.”

It’s reassurance, but there’s a question in it too. Bucky nods. His smile is slow to widen and trembling to hold, but it comes torn out of heart.

“I’m good,” he says, nuzzling into Steve’s hand. “I’m yours.”

Steve’s eyes darken, his lips lift into a soft shape. He pulls Bucky down into a kiss, kind and wet. His hands are possessive sliding over Bucky’s sides, coming to a rest at his hips.

Bucky takes his time pulling away from Steve’s mouth. He rubs his cheek into Steve’s beard, sighing when the bristles scratch pleasantly against his own stubble.

“Go on,” Steve says, and that’s all Bucky needs to hear to reach behind him and hold Steve’s cock for him to lower himself down on. Steve hisses a little when the metal touches his cock, but he’s got to be used to it by this point. His fingers press into Bucky’s skin, thumbs slotting along the jut of his hipbone.

Bucky closes his eyes and doesn’t make a sound as he’s slowly, inexorably filled.

There’s always that feeling, with Steve, of being pushed right his limit. Sometimes over it, in ways that make him go limp and sweet. He doesn’t always get to adjust to it, and he loves it either way, so he hums happily and just stays like that, seated on Steve’s dick and almost unbearably full.

Steve strokes his flank, his warm touch soothing on Bucky’s shaky legs. Then his hands creep up Bucky’s thighs and palms his ass. The pain isn’t urgent, more a warning ache than anything, but Bucky gives a little whine anyway, opening his eyes to pout at Steve.

Steve just looks so damn pleased with himself, and damn if it ain’t a good look on him.

“Move,” he orders gently.

Bucky bites his lip and obeys, hands braced on Steve’s chest as he drags his ass up Steve’s cock. He’s harsher on the slide down, not quite meaning to but unable to hold himself up for long. His legs feel like hot spaghetti. And Steve’s no help, really, hands never straying far from Bucky’s ass, fingers digging in now and then into raw, tender flesh.

So Bucky rides him slow and lazy, kept on that knife’s edge between pain and pleasure, where pain _is_ pleasure. He doesn’t touch himself; this is one of those nights when he’s got only the one in him, and his cock’s red and ready to blow at the slightest pressure.

Steve seems content to just lie there and watch Bucky work, possessively reverent from drag of his fingertips down Bucky’s crack to the way he breathes Bucky’s name into the warm, pulsing air between them.

-

Bucky wakes with the sun, squinting unhappily at the brightness of the room. Steve’s snoring away beside him, lying on his stomach with one huge arm thrown across Bucky.

He feels like a thoroughly wrung towel, body heavy and achy and sated.

He’s also a little dehydrated, but in the short battle between the urge to pour something cool down his dry throat and the need to stay tucked up against Steve’s enveloping warmth, the latter comes out the victor.

Bucky yawns and hides his face in Steve’s shoulder and goes back to sleep.

-

It lasts a week, and it’s got the same, dreamlike quality of those days in France, when Bucky woke up a little startled by the telltale sounds of another body in his house and fought with the slow, painful realization that the years had given him no immunity to Steve’s gravity pull.

Except, of course, that last day when he woke up with Steve in his bed and didn’t think, not for a second, that the world would choose that moment to puncture their pretty little bubble.

That dream didn’t last.

This one won’t either, but it’s magical while it does. Bucky already knows he’ll be curling close around these days and nights when he needs the comfort of having something good in his life, something soft and precious.

It’s not goodbye.

Steve’s the one who tells him that, forehead pressed to Bucky’s. He hasn’t suited up. That would be too conspicuous. But in all the ways that matter, Steve Rogers has been swallowed up in what used to be Captain America but is now Nomad. His posture has shifted, the loose-limbed ease of these last few days vanishing into a vibrant alertness.

Ever the hero; noble Atlas, with a calling that won’t let him stay in this pocket of peace.

But he lingers, palpably reluctant to leave.

“I know it’s not,” Bucky tells him. “You’re a perpetual pain in my ass.”

“Literally.”

Steve squeezes Bucky’s admittedly sore ass and doesn’t even have the decency to flinch when Bucky smacks his chest. He kisses Bucky, brief and chaste, and steps back, turning away to straddle the bike he’s rented.

And now it’s Bucky who finds himself reaching out, clinging to Steve with the tips of his fingers. Steve’s hand closes around Bucky’s wrist and draws it up. Lips brush gently against metal knuckles, and Bucky can’t feel the warmth or softness of them, but the touch still shudders through him.

“I’ll find you,” Steve says, a quite promise.

“I know.” Bucky swallows, throat clicking, and finds it in himself to let go. “I’ll be waiting.”

Steve’s smile makes his heart skip a beat.

“See ya, Buck. I love you.”

“You too,” Bucky murmurs, stepping back as the bike roars to life.

He watches Steve and watches the road long after he’s gone, wondering at the lump in his throat and why it was so hard this time to let him go.

It doesn’t strike him until hours later, what Steve _said_. What Bucky said _back_.

-

“Son of a bitch.”

He lets the phone fall from his fingers. It hits his chest painfully, then tumbles down to the bedding. The screen’s open to Steve’s number. Bucky spent a good three minutes with his finger over the green button, but he couldn’t bring himself to press it. He’s already itching to pick it back up and call Steve, emergency-only be damned because you don’t just drop that on a guy and drive off into the sunrise.

Fucker.

And—and Bucky said it back. Kind of. Vaguely.

It just felt so natural, then. He didn’t even register it. Of course Steve loved him. Of course Bucky loved Steve. Earth was round, sun set in the west.

Bucky buries his inexplicably hot face in his hands, sucking in a deep, calming breath.

Steve is going to show up eventually. And Bucky is going to wring his neck, and then kiss the hell out of him. And then, they’re going to sit down and have a talk like the functional adults they pretend to be.

It’s still scary. He’s still scared of fucking up.

But honestly, he did as much damage as he could to Steve. The last two years have been about doing better. And they’ve been good together, haven’t they? They’ve been—

Yeah.

He’s still going to wring Steve’s neck first.

-

He waits, and he keeps waiting, but Steve doesn’t come find him. Two weeks turn to four turn to six, and Bucky’s at his limit, giving himself an internal deadline before he picks that damn phone back up.

He doesn’t have to, in the end.

Natasha shows up at his door first.

**Author's Note:**

> As far as cliffhangers go, that's gentle...by my standards 😇

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [collab: voxofthevoid](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23361448) by [kocuria-visuals (kocuria)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kocuria/pseuds/kocuria-visuals)




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